Archives for March 2016

On the on-ear front, the foldable wired closed-back Jabra Revo, in the white-grey-red color-scheme, are available in new condition for $40 with free shipping at Groupon Goods. They have free returns and a 1 year warranty and get delivered usually within seven business days after ordering (this may feel like an eternity if you are used to Prime 2-day).

It’s back down to $50 again, the new condition semi-open over-ear AKG K240 studio headphones are once again going for $50 with free shipping at Adorama.com. The page there says “low stock” but you can still order it as of the time of writing.

On the budget AKG-homage studio-ish headphones front, the semi-open over-ear Samson SR850 headphones are on sale for $35 with free shipping at Adorama.com… Alternately, the closed-back Samson SR 950 (nine fifty) go for $38 by various market sellers with the order fulfilled by Amazon…

It is back! If you are interested in the new condition open-back over-ear Sennheiser HD 600, the gift card promotion is back at Amazon.com. You pay $400, and you get the new condition HD 600 and a $150 plastic Amazon Gift Card! Limit 30 bundles per customer. No coupon is needed, just add to cart and checkout. This is a sale, not part of the lightning deals, so it could last hours or days or weeks or years ~ I do not know.

UPDATE: you can also check for other Sennheiser + Gift Card bundles at Amazon.

This is very nice, especially for the price, the Shure HPACP1 Headphone Carrying Pouch is going for $3.56, in new condition, at Amazon By Amazon actual. The only catch is that it is an Add-On Item, so you must place an order of $25+ otherwise the shopping cart won’t let you buy it. You can simply add it to a future order, unless you need 8+ of them (it’s $25+, seven of them is $24.92). If you are gifting someone headphones or sell/trade/exchange them online or in AV forums, adding a pouch to package is a nice touch (and doesn’t cost you much). These are made for the Shure over-ear studio headphones (840/440/240/550/750), so many headphones should fit in.

Speaking of add-on items, this tiny little AmazonBasics camera case goes for $2.45 and could protect earbuds or in-ears or accessories/adapters thanks to its extra padding.

Total coincidence that we have to back to back posts that are $30 with free shipping each, but we start at deals website Tanga offering the new condition white color schemed Audio-Technica SonicPro In-Ears for $30 with free shipping. Per the “Details” tab there, these are new condition, in retail packaging, with a two year warranty and there are nine units left as of the time of writing.

For a limited time only, as a flash sale, Adorama.com is offering in two different color schemes the new condition SMS Audio BioSport Wired In-Ears with a heart rate monitor for $30 with free shipping. The intersection of wearables and earphones.

Another one of the offers running at members-only Massdrop is now fully unlocked in terms of price (aka the lowest price during the run of this offer), it is the TEAC HA-P50 Portable Headphone DAC/Amp with various audio inputs (analog, digital optical, two USB) going for $150 plus $8~ flat shipping. Offer ends in about a week from today and ships in late April 2016.

Or if you are fond of used, you can get it for $143~ in “Used – Very Good” condition (minor cosmetic imperfections, damaged packaging) by Amazon Warehouse Deals. There’s only one used listing for it. It averages 4.3 out of 5 based on 15 customer reviews.

Massdrop has another grab bag offer (aka “Blue Box” in Massdrop-speak). You pay $170 plus $8~ flat shipping and you will receive one of four different NuForce HEM-series in-ears (2 or 4 or 6 or 8). The “2” is the lowest price, so half of the people will get that. The rest will get either a “4” or a “6” or an “8”. There are also four big prizes that go to four lucky grab-bag buyers.

NOTE: these will ship in early May 2016. Limit two units per customer. This is fully unlocked. Offer ends in about six days from today (today being the blog-posting date, not the date you are reading this).

If your interests of Bluetooth and Bass And More Bass intersect, Secondipidity’s eBay store is offering manufacturer refurbished Sony MDR-XB950BT/B Extra Bass Bluetooth headphones for $85 with free shipping and a 90-day warranty. Limit five pairs per buyer during this sale.

Never admit in the presence of audiophiles you like Klipsch 😉 And don’t let them see you read this post either! The new condition Klipsch X4i in-ears are currently on sale for $60 with free shipping by BuyDig on eBay as one of the numerous spotlight eBay Deals.

They are back available at Massdrop again, the open-back over-ear AKG K7XX Massdrop edition going for $200 with free shipping. This offer is good for the next seven days or if the available quantity is depleted. Note that these ship in early May 2016, so patience is an audiophile virtue 🙂 The K7xx are a variation on a theme on the 65th anniversary edition of the K702.

Unlike the AKG M220 which is available for similar prices elsewhere (Audio Watt Store on Amazon), the K7XX is selling over $200 in Used condition at Amazon, so Massdrop or peer-to-peer purchases are the way to go for the K7xx.

It’s AKG time among the eBay Deals, where eBay seller “Pro Audio Star” (99.6%) is offering new condition AKG K67 Tiesto DJ headphones for $30 with free shipping, with a limit of five pairs per customer. This ships from Brooklyn (New York).

The Sennheiser HD 598 Special Edition (with the more conventional color scheme) are currently on sale for $130 with free shipping, not part of a lightning deal, at Amazon by Amazon actual. There is a limit of two pairs per customer during this sale. Used prices currently start at $104 for these. They are part of the three-tier HD 5×8 series, of which much has been written about, so you should be able to find enough information to help you triangulate between them all.

If you are fond of the S-Logic technology, the Ultrasone PRO 900i closed-back folding headphones are on sale for a limited time, in new condition, for $270 with free shipping at Adorama.com whose promotion expires 3/31/16.

At Office Depot and Office Max brick and mortar stores, there is a sale on some J-Lab models, including an in-ear model for $4 and the Neon On-Ears for $10. Each one is available in multiple colors. I don’t recall which one of the in-ear models was on sale, maybe the JBuds Metal ~ their website does not have pictures of the outside boxes, so I can’t tell by appearance. The sale is only in-store. Sales like these typically end on Saturday nights.

If you happen to need all three of these (or can sell/trade/gift the ones you don’t need), Amazon is back with another Sennheiser HD 650 bundle. For $500, in new condition, you get the HD 650 headphones, the M-Audio AV32 Professional Studio Monitor Speakers (3″ Woofer; $100 on their own) and the Blue Microphones Yeti USB Microphone (whiteout color scheme; $120 on its own). So within this bundle, assuming you place that value on those two items, the HD 650 is valued at $280.

The Gift Card Bundle is back as well, but it only comes with a $100 Gift Card this time for a total price of $500. Not a good deal.

PS: this search link shows some of the other Sennheiser Amazon Gift Card bundles currently available.

If you have an Amazon Prime membership, or are planning an Amazon order that gets you free shipping ($25+ in books or $49+ in physical goods), you can now get the brand new tiny Fiio A1 portable headphone amp with free 2-day Prime shipping (if a member). This is now in-stock as of 3/27/16 PM, The shipping estimate at the moment is March 28 (2016) and the seller of record is the Tinbel Store with the order fulfilled by Amazon.

This is the replacement and follow-up to the good old Fiio E6, part of the newly revamped Fiio line-up. It has volume control via two distinct +/- buttons (the E6 had a unibody volume rocker of sorts). The Equalizer shares the same button as the Power button. All buttons are now straight up buttons, moving away from the more slidery nature of the adorarkable E6.

Audio input is on the other side of the device, you can see it in one of the pictures on the Fiio website. Another difference is the A1 is using micro-USB versus the mini-USB of the E6. Detailed specs at the Fiio product page. You can also find its user manual on its support page.

The headphones parade continues on eBay, this time it’s the official ebay store of NewEgg’s that is offering the new condition JBL Synchros S300 On-Ears in the black/blue color-scheme with mic/remote for $55 with free shipping and a limit of five pairs per customer. They are folding and the last picture in the gallery shows the included accessories. Note that even though it has detachable cable, reviews state that this uses a 3.5mm to 2.5mm audio cable, not the usual 3.5mm to 3.5mm one would expect to find in the consumer-tier price ranges.

If you are a fan of Massdrop and their Fostex x Massdrop TH-X00 Purpleheart headphones, they are offered again, for $450 with free shipping. The promotion is limited to 1000 units, and nearly 800 of them got scooped up as of the time of writing. The listing ends in 7 days (from blog-posting date) but it will likely sell-out before the seven days pass.

NOTE!!! the shipping estimate for these is August 2016. I repeat August 2016. That’s about five months from today! Patience is a virtue that can make you very purple if you hold your breath that long 🙂

The recently released Sony h.ear headphones go for $200 in new condition, but if you are comfortable with used headphones, there are a number of listings now in Used condition and in various colors for around $150 at Amazon Warehouse Deals. This link shows the lowest price per color. To see all options for each individual color, click on the thumbnail of that color at the top of the page or the “See all offers for this product” link next to the color of choice. There are five solid “highlighter” colors for these which all together average 4.6 out of 5 based on 13 customer reviews (interestingly, only 5-star and 2-star reviews posted so far).

The Sennheiser IE80 in-ears are currently on sale for $249 with free shipping, with a limit of five pairs per customer at this price at Amazon by Amazon actual. Another seller (Beach) has them for the same price and Prime eligible as well (in case you need more than five pairs right now).

The flagship Hifiman HE-1000 go for $3000 in new condition, but if you are comfortable buying used open-box units, it is available in “Used – Like New” Open-box condition for $2500 by HiDef Lifestyle (100%, 8832 ratings) through Amazon Warehouse Deals. This ships directly from HiDef Lifestyle, so it is not eligible for Prime shipping.

The Shure SRH-440 found itself in a number of earlier recommendation lists, so perhaps that’s why it’s able to hold a steady price of $100 in new condition. If you want to save some, you can get it in “Used – Like New” condition (Display Model) for $80 with free shipping by “Musical Supply Direct” through Amazon Warehouse Deals. This ships directly from them, so it’s not eligible for Prime shipping benefits. The headphones average 4.4 out of 5 based on nearly 400 customer reviews.

On the other hand, if you prefer the newer M220 AKG model, and don’t want to wait for or deal with Massdrop, marketplace seller “Audio Watt Store” is offering them in new condition for $70 with free shipping fulfilled by Amazon, so you get free 2-day Prime shipping (if a member) and you deal with Amazon’s customer support in case of issues.

This sale ended: It looks like Amazon is now price-matching and further dropping by a $1 the price of the new condition AKG K240 Semi-Open over-ear headphones. The limit is three per customer during this sale. These average 4.4 out of 5 based on nearly 800 customer reviews. These are “old-school” headphones, no mic/remote.

I don’t know what’s the latest with the “Fidelio X2 Glue Crisis 2016”, but if you prefer to get the older X1 model, it is available in “Used – Good” condition (cosmetic imperfections, damaged packaging) for $127~ by Amazon Warehouse Deals actual. They only have one entry, the rest of the used options are by marketplace sellers that ship directly.

As of the time of writing, the Amazon X2 listing has that dreaded “Item Under Review” warning box.

If you are looking for red-black bluetooth on-ear headphones, this particular color-scheme of the Jabra Move Bluetooths is available in “Used – Good” condition (damaged original packaging) for $38~ or “Used – Very Good” condition (likewise with the packaging) for $41~ by Amazon Warehouse Deals actual. Free shipping for Prime members or with a $49+ order (or a $25+ book order).

As of 9pm ET re-checking, the $99 AWD options got scooped up, and the lowest used prices are now $170+…

Interesting! The Beyerdynamic DT 990 open-back headphones in the PREMIUM version with 32 ohm impedance is currently available in “Used – Very Good” condition (minor cosmetic imperfections, damaged packaging) for $99~ by Amazon Warehouse Deals (AWD) Actual.

Items that ship from AWD actual come with a 30-day return policy but Amazon (AWD) does not make any promises of warranty. Items that ship from other sellers at AWD have a variety of return policies. Some are authorized dealers and state that the item comes with a warranty. Others may have a return policy. Some may be individual persons selling their own headphones and are obviously not authorized.

Please also note that used items at AWD typically have limited quantities and both their quantity and prices may change more frequently than new condition products. The listings in this blog are typed-in text, they can’t be updated automatically when the price or quantity changes.

Party over! As of 3/24/16 PM re-checking, the price returned to $250. As suspected, this may have been a computerized price-match of a marketplace seller…

The black color scheme of the Audio-Technica ATH-MSR7 (the “BK” model) is currently on sale for $195 with free shipping, with a limit of five per customer at Amazon by Amazon actual. It looks like may be a price match of their own marketplace sellers. The brown color scheme remains at $250. These average 4.6 out of 5 based on nearly 100 customer reviews.

Bundle time, if you want to get the new on-ear planar-magnetic headphones from Audeze, the SINE, along with iFi’s Nano iDSD portable battery-powered (LiPo technology) DAC, they are bundled together for a limited time for $470 with free shipping at Adorama.com.

Adorama is having a flash sale on the new condition semi-open over-ear good old AKG K240 headphones for $50 with free shipping. This is the third authorized in recent weeks to feature them for $50 as a limited time deal, so we sort of have a baseline price to look for if you don’t need to buy these as an emergency. I do not know the exact expiration time of this sale. These can be a benchmark type of a headphone to use when comparing sound signatures as it had been a frequently recommended sub-$100 headphone before the floodgates opened with the smartphone revolution.